New public transport system in Merida on hold temporarily

The Situr system will continue developing in the following public administrations….

MERIDA — Transportation Department chief Humberto Hevia Jiménez acknowledged in a statement on Monday August 21 that the Situr project will remain stalled for almost a year after the current state administration ends. The Merida urban transport system will not be able to correct its deficiencies since only one phase of the four promised for 2018 has been implemented, he said.

“This system (Situr) does not have to be seen as a single-administration project, in fact this government is laying the groundwork, based on studies, so that through them it is implementing the project,” he explained.

He cited Leon, Guanajuato as an example, which began to implement a new transport system 10 years ago, where now they are not only working to accomplish that commitment, but they are also covering the issue of traffic control in the city, “because it is useless to solve the public transportation problem when citizens do not use it.”

He acknowledged that only the first stage has been implemented “because it is a matter of methodology and strategy, to be able to implement the remaining three so that deadlines should not be established.”

It is worth remembering that in 2015, when the system was implemented, it was also said that a second stage would implement six other corridors that would serve 200 thousand passengers, as well as the introduction of the peripheral circuit with which a prepaid system would be started.

In a third stage, eight new routes would be included and a transfer tariff would be integrated to facilitate the connecting routes that at that moment already should have been placed. And the fourth stage includes, among other things, the creation of a digital information system in real time for the user.

However, all of the above does not yet have a date for its establishment, so that hundreds of users of public transport will continue to “suffer” problems like insufficient units and too-long waiting time, among other things.

Although during the presentation of the project in 2014, the former Secretary of Government Víctor Caballero Durán, now head of the Segey, reported that the implementation would begin in 2015 and would conclude in 2018 almost a year after the end of the current government. But only the first stage has been applied with the incorporation of 160 units covering new routes and improving others in the four points of the city, however it still doesn’t solve the problems of circulation mainly in the part of Circuito Colonias, the most transited street in the city.

(Photo: SIPSE, Milenio Novedades)

It was also said that during this first part, 250 kilometers of repaving would be repaired and 10 percent would have preferred lanes for public transport, all this would have an initial cost of 250 million pesos, but so far all of the above has not been met.

In addition, there is still a lack of seven corridors to meet the demand of 100,000 passengers who use transportation on a daily basis, which will pass through the main places of interest such as hospitals, schools and workplaces.